what does it take to break a man?
by owedbetter
Summary: "What does it take to break a man? What does it take to bring him to his knees? What does it take for a man to pull the trigger?" John Frobisher was a good man. And it wasn't his fault.


" _You cannot imagine how time can be so still. It hangs. It weighs. And yet there is so little of it. It goes so slowly, and yet it is so scarce._ "

\- Vivian Bearing, Wit by Margaret Edson

What does it take to break a man?

Is it his body, brittle bones wrapped in tissue and muscle, called temple of God – so said to be designed in His perfect image? Temples can burn and fall to ruin but some men—there are some men who start to think that they are worth it; think they can stand tall forever, that they will not wither away into dust and soot. (Not them, couldn't be them. Crumbling was the destiny of _other_ people; they didn't work as hard, they don't _deserve_ to stay.) That then can bring forth the belief that he possessed just as much power and just as much right to claim and distribute worth as much His creator. Is it? Or is it his pride, torn asunder, that has grown into righteousness for he has too long lusted after power and worked for it and has then thought he deserved it once he had it, only to realise how equally grounded he was to the Earth just as much as any walking to-be corpse before him?

What does it take to bring a man to his knees? What does it take for a man to pull the trigger?

The case bounced on the seat next to him like he were on a third world train, in a car meant to hold only 500 people at a time comfortably but squeezed in 2000 per station anyway. Sweat's fetor hung in the air. Almost as if his face were pressed to the glass as he held onto the warm metal railing (previously held onto by a hand lost to the crowd within) for balance as the metaphorical train car rattled on, with all the people on it. Almost as if all of them were holding their breath so as to not breathe the putrid stench of each other and the case, the blasted case, clung to his skin and shared a chagrined smirk that said _Not my fault, is it?_

But John Frobisher was alone in the backseat of this car, leather plush and comfortable as a coffin bed around him, and there was only this case next to him. Inside, it settled – taunting, silver chrome that rattled like death's ringtone come to call. _Hold, please._

He never wanted to arrive. He hoped to be trapped in traffic for the rest of his life if it meant the next hour never had to happen. The next ten minutes.

Now, John Frobisher was not a prayerful man. His first thought in the morning was not of gratitude for the day and his last thought at night was not of gratitude for the day that was and the day that will be. He was a man who was dedicated to his work – that's the good that they will say of him, if they can. Not that they will but it was nice to think that they might. He was not an honest man – out of necessity, he was not born a liar – but he liked to think he was a man of honour. A dependable man. A capable father. A husband who did his best for his wife as best he could. All in all, he tried. But no, he was not a prayerful man – but he liked to think of himself as a good Christian man on his better days; a good civil servant, a man just doing his duty for the greater good – making Britain a better country for his children to live in.

At night, he wanted to believe he was a good man. He was just doing his duty – what he was told; surely then, that absolved him of the guilt? Was this his reckoning – for simply standing idly by, for simply sewing his convictions in favour of his superior's demands? Was this his punishment?

John Frobisher was not a prayerful man but as the car rolled on, his street just around the corner, he found a mantra at the back of his mind. The most heartfelt prayer of his life – just a minute too late of salvation.

 _God please no, God please no, God please no, God please no, God please no, God please, no, God please_ —

Tapping like a sudden, turbulent rainstorm came knocking against the car window and his head whipped to face them. Stunned.

"Mr Frobisher, what can you tell us—"

"Mr Frobisher, is it true that the Prime Minister—"

"Mr Frobisher—"

"Mr Frobisher!"

Their voices meld into one. He did not listen nor could he. Just birdsong, he could conclude of the noise. Long, thin fingers went beneath his glasses as he rubbed his tired, red rimmed, bloodshot eyes. No way out, no escape. The car slowed in its ascent to a stop. The driver, only eyes from the rearview mirror, looked at him.

"We're here, sir," he announced.

John looked him in the eye and held this other man's stare for a moment. Robert, if he could be bothered to recognise this man's name but he didn't; he only gave a curt nod.

He soldiered up his own driveway as the small crowd of journalists and photographers stared and gawked and yelled and pointed and shot with flashes of light as he carried the case in his hands like a sinner with his cross. Not once did he fall to the ground though his knees were weak and by God, he wanted to fall – _take the burden from me, please; I don't want to go through with this. Don't make me do this. Strike me down where I walk. God please no, God please no—_ but all the while he kept a straight face, a soldier's face, and walked on. _Honey, I'm home._

The girls ran to him, jumped up to him even, and he did not have to pretend to smile. He grinned, ear to ear, as he felt their arms around him like an assurance that he was doing the right thing and he let the case drop the floor, temporarily forgotten.

 _I'm a good father,_ he wanted to think. _I'm a good father. I've done wrong everywhere else but I'll be damned if I do wrong by my girls. Let me be damned for my girls instead. For them, I'll be damned._

Just a second longer, just a little tighter - he wanted to hold them. Their arms, so skinny and small and light, and their hair so long and soft and shiny. More than anything, he wanted to sink to his knees and just hold his girls. An eternity with them, he craved – he thought of all the times they waited for him to tuck them into bed and he would have done it all over again without a word of complaint. He would have stayed with them every single night until they slept and rest there until they woke again. Protect them from every nightmare, every monster under the bed; God, there was so much he didn't do but should have done. Just a little tighter, just a second longer – and he let them go.

"Go upstairs to your room, girls," he told them. Their smiles turned puzzled and he hated himself. He wanted them to keep smiling for the rest of their lives – never a worry in the world ever again. In a way, wasn't that exactly what he was doing?

 _Keep your nerve, man. It's them or me._ It wasn't even a choice.

Holly and Lily, beautiful girls— and just like their father, they did as they were told. Dad knew best, after all; dad would fix everything. Dad would make all the people outside go away, dad would make the weird voices stop speaking through their mouths, dad would make everything make sense in the end. Dad might even get them that pony someday. Dad would make it all okay. He watched them trudge up the stairs like good little soldiers.

Then it was Anna he faced and he kissed her like she'd just said _I do._

Kissed her just a second longer, held her just a little tighter. Hand on her cheek and those were eyes of hers that could read him like a devout could a Bible. And she knew, in her heart of hearts; he knew she knew. She would have asked what was wrong; she would have talked him out of it, she would have told him they could run away. She would have cursed Brian Green into every circle of hell that there was and make one just for him with the worst sort of torture that only a mother could envision for a man who'd just sentenced her daughters to the fate that he had designed for them to _save face._ Like they, the Frobisher girls, were expendable— _I'll show_ you _who's expendable,_ Anna might have said, might have fought, and John wanted to kiss her again because he knew she would have but he didn't.

They weren't pawns on this board – they weren't players at all; they were statistics, part of the collateral damage. John had seen too well, firsthand, what happened to people who thought they were exceptions to the rule. He had watched, as he always did, because this was the sort of thing that happened to other people. It was only ever other people. Not him, not his family. Not his wife. Not his girls. But now it was – and he'll go to hell first before he lets that happen. In fact…

"Go with the girls upstairs, love."

"But John, there are—"

"I know, I know," he said, not wanting her to speak, not wanting her to break his resolve because she could. Because she would have. "I'll explain everything but first, I need you to go into the room with the girls."

"But why—"

"It will all make sense, just—Just trust me right now, darling. _Do_ you trust me?"

He hated himself.

Anna had that look in her eye – that _of course, you idiot_ look of hers that was only ever just for him – and she sighed. Nodded. Did as she was told. An obedient family, the Frobishers, up until they weren't. She went up the stairs without another word of resistance and a part of him wished that she would have.

He picked up the case from the floor and put it on top of the dinner table.

In his mind's eye, he saw Anna—ten years younger, she smiled more often then, with a glint of mischief in her eye as she waggled her brows at him, towered over him for once. Him, wrapped between the cradle of her thighs' embrace, as he loved her sweetly and fiercely and wholly while Holly slept in her cradle upstairs. He saw Lily and her distaste for liver, how she'd flung it about on her spoon in her toddler's rebellion and it got stuck to daddy's glasses – the whole table had gone silent for a moment as the meat slid from the glass and he wiped it with his fingers and slowly, Lily started laughing. Then Holly started laughing. Then Anna started laughing. Then they all were. He thought of them as he loaded the firearm. Hands, trembling; palms, sweating.

 _God please no, God please no, God please no, God please no, God please no, God please, no, God please_ —

John, with trembling nerve and heavy heart, walked the short way to the stairs. Then up the stairs he went while gravity and reason and cowardice tried to will him back down. To think this all through again. _There's another way, John! There's another way—!_

What does it take to break a man?

What does it take to bring him to his knees? What does it take for a man to pull the trigger?

His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed in the sick that threatened to rise to his throat. His knees wanted to give in. Everything about him urged him not to, coiled and wanted him to look the other way, the way he always had. The coward's way out.

But they're his girls. And he saw what he was supposed to send them to. And for them, he'll be brave.

Gun held behind his back, his fingers slick with sweat against the cold weapon.

Anna was sat against the right side of the bed while Holly and Lily played with pillows on the left. Polka-dotted ones, soft and fluffy. The sheets had just been changed, he saw. He hadn't noticed that before. His wife must have changed them the night prior. Did Lily wet the bed again, he wondered. He knew she still did sometimes though none of them told him. Embarrassed, he concluded, though she didn't have to be.

The thought made him pause as he closed the door behind him. It creaked.

"John, what's going on—" Anna started.

Her eyes went to his crooked arm and knew he was holding something behind his back. Perhaps she knew, even then, but didn't want to believe it. John wouldn't hurt them; he would protect them, he always did.

He licked his thin lips and his daughters stared at him – those beautiful, wide eyes both his and their mother's the same. His heart ached in his chest and more than anything, he wanted to drop. Drop the gun, drop to his knees, tell them everything he knew and have them tell him what to do because his option was this and he didn't want to do it. But they couldn't _do_ anything else but this—there was nowhere else to run, nowhere else to hide. John Frobisher had seen what they would become otherwise and he said no. They were four against billions in the world. But in that moment, he didn't give a damn about the world. The entire world can go fuck itself, can go straight on the hell—but they won't have them. They won't have his girls.

"Dad—" one of his daughters started to ask. Holly or Lily, he didn't have the heart then to figure it out.

"I'm sorry," he said; his voice, low – a barely there whisper.

He looked each of them in the eye. Just one last time. Just a second longer, just a little more.

A final prayer. _God, why have you forsaken me?_

His final words, spoken.

"I love you. I love you all so much."

The girls inched away, afraid (perhaps out of instinct), while Anna approached. Barely approached, really; she rest a hand on the bed, the weight of her pressure pressing the duvet down. She might have had time for one last word, one last breath but he held his and—

 _One, two, three._

Outside, the journalists stilled their breaths at the sound of shots fired in quick succession. A collective bemused look at each other, pointing to the sound, as if they'd all just imagined it at the same time.

" _Was that—?"_

" _Did you hear that—?"_

Inside, John Frobisher looked at his family. Not a sound in the room, not a breath left – not even his. He thought they might have closed their eyes but they were wide open. Identical wounds to the head, red splattered on the walls over the pale pink. Quick. The sheets had been clean. Newly changed. He should have tucked them in one last time. He should have held Anna close and woken up next to her one last time. He had no more seconds to spare.

He could only stare for a moment – a moment longer than he would have liked – and the gun was warm in his sweaty hands.

He did not weep; he could not weep.

Some men were built to break and crumble, after all. He just didn't think it'd be him.

Maybe in another life, he was a better man.

A good man, even.

In this one, all he did was try. And fail.

But he did this one thing right, he told himself. Just this one thing.

John Frobisher did right by his girls.

This one last cowardly thing though was for himself. He was damned anyway.

A single tear fell from each of his red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes. Blood speckled his glasses like polka dots and he made no move to wipe them.

His hands no longer shook.

He held the gun to his mouth, lips puckered around the weapon's tip, pointed upward. Still hot to the touch.

He looked at them each in turn – just one last second longer, just a little more.

 _Four._


End file.
